Marcelo Bonevardi’s extensive and remarkable exhibition establishes three convergent analyzes: originality, proof of historical resistance—none of his work has aged aesthetically—and the creation of a zenith in a certain facet of art history. Thirty pieces hanging in a non-rectangular—mansion-style—gallery, unquestionably expose the public to a warmer atmosphere than “the white cube,” while disarming the confrontation with the individual and spacious presence of each work.
In “Reconsidering Bonevardi,” one can perceive the lines painted on his canvasses, the metaphorical depth in his woodwork, or the two-dimensional and three-dimensional pathways, as in Inmured (1969) or Lock (1974). Marcelo Bonevardi developed very personal planes, mastabas, door openings, pyramids, various mini-windows, openings—visited or sealed by those little balls that pretend to be the children of the world—or Cornellian spheres and other volumetric dimensions. Although Marcelo Bonevardi was initially devoted to painting, the shapes and the development of his work towards three-dimensionality define him as an author of reliefs of various depths and irregular contours. Cavities, arcane hiding places, powerful silences due to a non-strident visual language: all of these are movements that include temporality, both in realization and in observation. “I manufacture every part, however small it may be ... My aim is not to shock.”
